Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Appendix A
Action Verbs Simple Past Search
Name: ________________ (
)
Class: __________
Date: __________________
Find the simple past tense forms of the verbs in the puzzle and put the
verbs under the correct groups below.
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Name: ________________ (
Cast Away
)
Class: __________
Appendix B
Date: __________________
Vocabulary-building:
What do the following words mean? Use your dictionaries or ask your
teacher.
1. Turbulence (on the plane)
2. Plane crash
3. Raft
4. Crew
5. Float
6. Pacific ocean
7. Island
8. FEDEX (Express Delivery)
9. Coconut
10. Cave, Hill
11. Stranded
12. Bury
13. Epitaph
14. Flash light
15. Inhabited
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Appendix C
Comprehension questions
Name: ________________ (
)
Class: __________
Date: __________________
From when the plane experiences Turbulence
(Movie excerpt 00:23 – 00:31 = 9 mins)
1. What finally happened to the plane?
_____________________________________________________________
2. Where did the plane crash?
_____________________________________________________________
3. What helped Tom Hanks to float on the high seas?
_____________________________________________________________
4. Where did he finally land?
_____________________________________________________________
5. What happened to the other crew members?
_____________________________________________________________
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
From when he gets on the island
(Movie excerpt 00:31 – 00:59 = 29 mins)
1. What were some of the first things he did when he landed on the island?
___________________________________________________________
2. Was the island inhabited?
___________________________________________________________
3. What sounds frightened him at night?
___________________________________________________________
4. What happened to the word “HELP” which he carved on the sand?
___________________________________________________________
5. How did he get his drink?
___________________________________________________________
6. If you found yourself in the same situation, would you drink sea water?
Why or why not?
___________________________________________________________
7. What did he find on the other side of the island?
___________________________________________________________
8. Why did he come running down from the hill? What did he find in the water?
___________________________________________________________
9. How did the dead man help him?
___________________________________________________________
10. What did he finally do to the dead man?
___________________________________________________________
11. What did the dead man’s epitaph read?
___________________________________________________________
12. What do you think happens next?
__________________________________________________________
Appendix D
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Movie Story Sequence
Name: ________________ (
)
Class: __________
Date: __________________
Put the following events in the correct order by writing numbers next to
them.
____ He took off the dead man’s shoes and flash light
____ The plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
____ He landed on a lonely island.
____ The flight crew were experiencing turbulence.
____ He split open the coconut with a stone and drank the juice.
____ He found a dead body floating near the beach.
____ He buried the dead man and wrote him an epitaph.
____ Tom Hanks used a raft to stay afloat.
____ He walked round the island and climbed a hill.
____ He called out for help.
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Appendix E
Conversation questions
Name: ________________ (
)
Class: __________
Date: __________________
Discuss the following questions with your group members. You can make
notes in the space.
1. If you were the only survivor in a plane crash like Tom Hanks on
a lonely island, what would you do?
2. What would you do if you were forced to live on a lonely island
for 25 years?
3. How would you get your food if you were lost on a lonely island
without any? How would you brush your teeth?
4. How would you change if you came back from a lonely island
after 20 years? Would you look same?
5. What would happen if you couldn’t talk to people for 25 years?
What would happen to your language skills?
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Helicopter Crash
Appendix F
Tape instruction 1:
It is summer. Chuck and his friends joined a ‘saving the earth’ team to study wildlife in the remote
parts of the world. They are now transferred to a specially chartered helicopter paid by the
sponsoring bodies Green Peace and the BBC Worlds Wild Life Fund. They are all very excited
about the possibility of discovering new species of animal life and also learning about the habitat of
endangered species in order to help protect them.
The helicopter is flying over the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, there is something wrong with the
engine of the helicopter. It starts to lose the control. The skillful pilot enables it to land on an island
with an emergency landing. Luckily, Chuck, the rest of the three person team and the pilot are still
alive with only minor hurts. The materials and equipment they had on board are not broken, so
Chuck decides to collect them. After looking around, they know that they are all in the north-east
). With few supplies and little hope of rescue or notice by passing
planes, the only chance of survival is to reach the west of the island ().
of the island near a volcano (
Activity 1:
If you were Chuck, what would you do next? Study the map and the list of equipment below. Then,
in your groups, decide which SIX items you will choose to take with you on your way to the west
of the island. You cannot take any more because you want to travel as quickly as possible. After
each group has made up their choices, it must report them to the class explaining the reasons.
Having announced their choices, no changes can be made. Keep a record of the choices made by
your group ready for the next stage.
List of equipment. Choose SIX items only



















One man tent
Folding table
Camping chair
2L water container
full of water
Large heavy torch
MP3 / ipod
Sleeping bag
Blanket
Saucepan
Chopsticks
Knife, fork and spoon
Tin opener
Shampoo, soap,
toothbrush and comb
Scissors
A bottle of bear
Rope
Rope ladder
















Hat
Volleyball
A bar of
chocolate
Cigarettes and
lighter
Towel
Canned food
First Aid Kit
Small hammer
Umbrella
Notebook
Sunglasses
Lotion
Net
Sheet of strong
plastic
Newspaper
English textbook
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Tape instruction 2:
Having made your decisions, you start your way to the west. Suddenly, you come to a narrow
valley. It is not possible to get across it because the gap is too large (at least 20m wide) and the
walls on the both sides are vertical. The river at the bottom is full of rocks. It would be very
dangerous to climb down and up. If you were forced to get across the narrow valley, would you do?
Remember your equipment.
Activity 2:
Make your decisions. Report and discuss the decisions.
Tape instruction 3:
The sky turns dark, you search for a place to stay overnight and take a rest. Luckily, you find a
cave. You are all very tired, cold and hungry after walking for the whole day. But someone thinks
that the wildlife may attack you all unexpectedly when you are sleeping. If you faced these
problems, (1) what would you do to keep you warm? (2) what would you do to get some food to
eat? (3) what would you do to keep you safe?
Activity 3:
Make your decisions. Report and discuss the decisions.
Tape instruction 4:
Finally, you arrive at the west. All you have to do now is to draw others’ attention, so that people
can come to save you all.
Activity 4
Make your decisions. Report and discuss the decisions.
(**You need to comment on what other group say with the
peer-assessment form)
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Appendix G
Peer-assessment form
Group name : ________________ Class: ________ Date: ___________________
Color the
for your classmates’ presentation.

Content
1. Their ideas are interesting, creative and possible.
2. They can give good reasons to explain.
A good idea they contributed was _______________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Language
1. They don’t have a lot of grammatical mistakes.
2. They can use second conditional sentence correctly.
3. Even if they have made some mistakes, they can
correct them.
A grammar error I noticed in this group was _______________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Communication strategies
1. They have good eye-contact with us.
2. Their voice is loud enough.
3. They speak fluently with very little ‘er’, ‘um’.

My aim
From evaluating this group discussion, what I want to do better next time will be ____
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

We are happy with their work.
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
They need to work more on:
- Content (e.g. ideas, reasons, etc)
- Language (e.g. grammar):
- Communication strategies:
- Others:
Thank you for your help!
Appendix H
Lam Ka Wai
Teaching Materials on Cast Away
Copyrights owned by the author
Scoring rubric for teachers to assess the speaking task
Distinction
Content
-
-
Language
-
Communication strategies
-
Provide
interesting,
creative and
workable ideas
Provide persuasive
supporting reasons
Description is
very clear
Highly related to
the situations
Use a wide range
of vocabulary and
verb forms fairly
appropriately with
few grammatical
mistakes
Have eye-contact
with the listener
Voice is loud
enough
Speak very clearly
and fluently
Good
-
-
-
-
-
Provide sufficient
and relevant but
not very special
ideas
Provide supporting
details
Description of
activities is clear
Generally related
to the situations
Use a small range
of vocabulary and
verb forms fairly
appropriately with
some grammatical
mistakes
Sometimes have
eye-contact with
the listener
Voice is loud
enough
Speak not very
clearly and
fluently
Satisfactory
-
Fair - Redo
Provide brief and
general ideas, some
of them are not
workable
Lack of supporting
reasons
Description of
activities is quite
clear
Related some of the
situation
-
-
Use a very limit
range of vocabulary
and verb forms or
make many
grammatical mistakes
-
-
Very limited
eye-contact with the
listener
Voice is a bit soft
Speak unclearly
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Provides total
irrelevant and not
workable ideas /
no ideas at all
No supporting
reasons
Description is not
clear that may
confuse the
listener
Related less/none
of the situation
With lots of
grammatical
mistakes. Hard to
follow
No eye-contact
with the listener
at all
Voice is too soft,
cannot hear
Speak very
unclearly, with
many unnecessary
pause